Sheryl Sandberg Leans In

With a new book and a global community, Sheryl Sandberg is on a mission...to help you reach your potential at work and in life. We are thrilled to have her as a guest editor on our first Cosmo Careers supplement. Here, an exclusive excerpt from Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead.

On March 24, 2008, I headed to my first day of work as chief operating officer of a small company called Facebook. As I pulled out of my driveway, I remember feeling excited. I also felt a little nervous...a little anxious...okay, maybe even a little scared about this new challenge. It wasn't anything specific that concerned me. I knew the tech business well after spending more than six years at Google. I had shared many dinners with CEO Mark Zuckerberg before he offered me the job, and I knew we were in sync about the importance of Facebook's mission. My fear was more the general anxiety you feel over the risks associated with a new job and the worry that you won't succeed.

I parked my car and went up to an industrial, open-plan office space. My desk faced Mark's and was near the very popular Rainbow Room, which was crammed with couches and video games. At the time, the office walls were bare. Today, those walls are filled with posters that reflect the company's philosophy and encourage employees to take risks. "Proceed and be bold," declares one. "Move fast and break things," advises another. But the one that would have helped me on that first morning doesn't make a statement; it asks a question: "What would you do if you weren't afraid?"

This question speaks to everyone, but I think it has special significance for women. Fear is at the root of so many of the barriers that women face. Fear of not being liked. Fear of making the wrong decision. Fear of drawing negative attention. Fear of overreaching. Fear of being judged. Fear of failure. And for those who want to have children, the fear that we can't be both good employees and good mothers.

I know it's pointless to tell someone to be fearless. I regularly fail to convince even myself. But it does help to tell ourselves to fight our fears at every stage of our lives. In school, don't be afraid to raise your hand. When you are attending a meeting, don't be afraid to sit at the table. Don't be afraid to offer your opinion. Don't be afraid of waiting to find a life partner who will support you in achieving your dreams. And don't be afraid to be fully engaged in your career, even as you plan to have a family. By fighting these fears, women can pursue professional success and personal fulfillment--and freely choose one or the other...or both.

Five years ago, I dove into my new Facebook job as fearlessly as I could. And although at the time a lot of people questioned why I would want to go to work for a 23-year-old, no one asks me that question anymore.

It's your turn now. Please ask yourself: What would I do if I weren't afraid? And then go do it.

A few years ago, I hosted a meeting for Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner at Facebook. We invited 15 executives from across Silicon Valley for breakfast and a discussion about the economy. Secretary Geithner arrived with four members of his staff, two senior and two more junior, and we all gathered in our one nice conference room. After the usual milling around, I encouraged everyone to take a seat. Our invited guests, mostly men, sat down at the large conference table. Secretary Geithner's team, all women, took their food last and sat in chairs off to the side of the room. I motioned for the women to come sit at the table, waving them over publicly so they would feel welcomed. They demurred and remained in their seats.

The four women had every right to be at this meeting, but because of their seating choice, they seemed like spectators rather than participants. I knew I had to say something. So after the meeting, I pulled them aside to talk. I pointed out that they should have sat at the table even without an invitation, but when publicly welcomed, they most certainly should have joined. At first, they seemed surprised, then they agreed.

It was a watershed moment for me. A moment when I witnessed an internal barrier altering women's behavior. A moment when I realized that in addition to facing institutional obstacles, women face a battle from within. We consistently underestimate ourselves. Multiple studies in multiple industries show that women often judge their own performance as worse than it actually is, while men judge their own performance as better than it actually is.

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We hold ourselves back in ways both big and small, by lacking self-confidence, by not raising our hands, and by pulling back when we should be leaning in. We internalize the negative messages we get throughout our lives--the messages that say it's wrong to be outspoken, aggressive, or more powerful than men. We lower our own expectations of what we can achieve. We continue to do the majority of the housework and child care. We compromise our career goals to make room for partners and children who may not even exist yet. Compared to our male colleagues, fewer of us aspire to senior positions.

Internal obstacles are rarely discussed and often underplayed. Throughout my life, I was told over and over about inequalities in the workplace and how hard it would be to have a career and a family. I rarely, however, heard anything about the ways I might hold myself back. These internal obstacles deserve a lot more attention because they are under our control. We cannot change what we are unaware of, and once we are aware, we cannot help but change.

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I know that in order to continue to grow and challenge myself, I have to believe in my own abilities. I still face situations that I fear are beyond my qualifications. And I still sometimes find myself spoken over and discounted while men sitting next to me are not. But now I know how to take a deep breath and keep my hand up. I have learned to sit at the table.

SUCCESS SECRET 2: Make Your Partner a Real Partner

I truly believe that the single most important career decision that a woman makes is whether she will have a life partner and who that partner is. A woman who can find someone who is willing to share the burdens--and joys--of home life will go further in her work life. I don't know of a single woman in a leadership position whose life partner is not fully--and I mean fully--supportive of her career. No exceptions. And contrary to the popular notion that only unmarried women can make it to the top, the majority of the most successful female business leaders have partners.

In the last thirty years, women have made more progress in the workforce than in the home. When a husband and wife both work full-time, the mother does 40 percent more child care and about 30 percent more housework than the father. So while men are taking on more household responsibilities, this increase is happening very slowly, and we are still far from parity. (Perhaps unsurprisingly, same-sex couples divide household tasks much more evenly.)

This has to change. Just as we need to encourage women to lean in to their careers, we need to encourage men to lean in to their families. If we expect and allow them to do more, they will do more. And everyone will benefit.

When husbands do more housework, wives are less depressed, marital conflicts decrease, and satisfaction rises. When women work outside the home and share breadwinning duties, couples are more likely to stay together. In fact, the risk of divorce reduces by about half when a wife earns half the income and a husband does half the housework. For men, participating in child rearing fosters the development of patience, empathy, and adaptability, characteristics that benefit them in all their relationships. For women, earning money increases their decision-making ability in the home, protects them in case of divorce, and can be important security in later years, as women often outlive their husbands. Also--and many might find this the most motivating factor--couples who share domestic responsibilities have more sex. It may be counterintuitive, but the best way for a man to make a pass at his wife might be to do the dishes.

I could not do what I do without my husband, Dave. Still, like all marriages, ours is a work in progress. Dave and I have had our share of bumps on our path to achieving a roughly 50/50 split. After a lot of effort and seemingly endless discussion, we are truly partners.

The good news is that men in younger generations appear more eager to be real partners than previous generations did. A survey that asked participants to rate the importance of various job characteristics found that men in their 40s most frequently selected "work that challenges me" as very important, while men in their 20s and 30s most frequently selected having a job with a schedule that "allows me to spend time with my family." If these trends hold as this group ages, this could signal a promising shift toward greater equality.

Wonderful, sensitive men of all ages are out there. And the more that women value kindness and support in their boyfriends, the more men will demonstrate it.

So, when looking for a life partner, my advice to women is date all of them: the bad boys, the cool boys, the commitmentphobic boys, the crazy boys. But do not marry them. The things that make the bad boys sexy do not make them good husbands. When it comes time to settle down, find someone who wants an equal partner. Someone who thinks women should be smart, opinionated, and ambitious. Someone who values fairness and expects or, even better, wants to do his share in the home. And at the start of a romance, even though it may be tempting for you to show a more classic girlfriend-y side by cooking meals and taking care of errands, hold yourself back from doing this too much. If a relationship begins in an unequal place, it is likely to get more unbalanced if and when children are added to the equation. Instead, use the beginning of a relationship to establish the bar for the division of labor. (For more on how to do this, turn to page 24 for "50/50: The Real Way to Have It All." )

SUCCESS SECRET 3: Don't Leave Before You Leave

The classic scenario unfolds like this: An ambitious and successful woman heads down a challenging career path with the thought of having children in the back of her mind. At some point, this thought moves to the front of her mind, typically once she finds a partner. The woman considers how hard she is working and reasons that to make room for a child she will have to scale back. A law associate might decide not to shoot for partner because someday she hopes to have a family. A teacher might pass on leading curriculum development for her school. A sales representative might take a smaller territory or not apply for a management role. Often without even realizing it, the woman stops reaching for new opportunities. If any are presented to her, she is likely to decline or offer the kind of hesitant "yes" that gets the project assigned to someone else. The problem is that even if she were to get pregnant immediately, she still has nine months before she has to care for an actual child. And since women usually start this mental preparation well before trying to conceive, several years often pass between the thought and conception, let alone birth. By the time the baby arrives, the woman is likely to be in a drastically different place in her career than she would have been had she not leaned back. Before, she was a top performer, on a par with her peers in responsibility, opportunity, and pay. By not finding ways to stretch herself in the years leading up to motherhood, she has fallen behind. When she returns to the workplace after her child is born, she is likely to feel less fulfilled, underutilized, or unappreciated. She may wonder why she is working for someone (often a man) who has less experience than she has. Or she may wonder why she does not have the exciting new project or the corner office. At this point, she probably scales back her ambitions even further since she no longer believes that she can get to the top. And if she has the financial resources to leave her job, she is more likely to do so.

For some women, pregnancy does not slow them down at all. For others, like me, pregnancy comes with real health issues, making it impossible to be as effective as normal. Therefore, given life's variables, I would never recommend that every woman lean in to their careers regardless of circumstances. But when it comes to integrating career and family, planning too far in advance can close doors rather than open them. The time to scale back is when a break is needed or when a child arrives, not years in advance. The years leading up to having children are not the time to lean back but rather the critical time to lean in.

Anyone who is lucky enough to have options should keep them open for as long as possible. Don't enter the workforce already looking for the exit. Don't put on the brakes. Continue to accelerate. Keep a foot on the gas pedal until a decision must be made. That's the only way to ensure that when that day comes, there will be a real decision to make.

From the book Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead, by Sheryl Sandberg. Copyright 2013 by LI Org, LLC. Published by arrangement with Alfred A. Knopf.

For more advice from Sheryl pick up the April issue of Cosmopolitan on newsstands now. Order your copy of Lean Inhere.